World: Closing Trap

Rommel's African days were growing shorter. The strung-out columns of
his army unraveled, steadily shredded away as he frantically dragged
westward along the Libyan coast. Ahead lay the El Aghéila bottleneck,
the most logical place for
Rommel to try to make a stand (TIME, Nov. 23). Beyond that lay the long
(600 mi.) and weary route to Tripoli which, by the time Rommel gets
there, may be only the other end of a slowly closing trap.

Last week Rommel abandoned Bengasi on the Cyrenaican hump. Short of
Tripoli itself, Bengasi was the last port left to him and the last
chance he...